Charles Minthorn Murphy

Charles Minthorn Murphy (October 1870 – February 16, 1950), also known as Mile-a-Minute Murphy, was an American cycling athlete. He was the first man ever to ride a bicycle for one mile in less than a minute. He performed this feat in 1899 by drafting behind an Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) passenger car along the LIRR's Central Branch between Farmingdale and Babylon on Long Island.

He was born in October 1870 to Eliza G. and Martin J. Murphy. On May 27, 1891, he married Elizabeth E. "Libbie" Puhl in Brooklyn. After the death of the latter in 1922, Murphy then married Catherine Kissel.

Murphy persuaded a railway company to board in two miles of track and run a train so he could ride a mile in a minute in its slipstream. It took him 57.8 seconds. He said in the Farmingdale Post that the idea came to him after an argument with friends at his home in Brooklyn, New York. "I was asked to give an opinion of the quality and relative speed of various prominent riders of the time", Murphy recalled. "My answer was that there is no limit to the speed of a bicycle rider, that speed depended largely upon the bicycle, gears, tracks and pacemaker. I declared there was not a locomotive built which could get away from me. The more people laughed, the more determined I became to accomplish the feat. I figured that the fast-moving locomotive would expel the air to such an extent that I could follow in the vacuum behind."

Murphy had ridden a mile in 37 seconds on static rollers and so, with a big enough shield, he said, he could go as fast as he liked.

"By chance," he said, "I met Hal Fullerton, special agent of the Long Island Rail Road at Howes Roadhouse. I pointed out that an exhibition of that kind would prove to the world that the Long Island Railroad had just as good , roadbeds and employees as any other road in the world." The contract was signed within 48 hours. James Edward Sullivan, secretary of the American athletics union, was referee and there were five timekeepers. The party arrived in Babylon, New York, at 5:00 pm on June 21, 1899, mounted the train and watched.

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